Recently, there has been some controversy concerning the number of uninsured Americans. To be honest, there is some basis for this confusion, though some groups and individuals have blown it far out of proportion.

First, some have criticized President Obama in being inconsistent in the numbers he has cited at various town halls and addresses. However, the President, like the rest of us, only has one comprehensive data source on the number of uninsured – the U.S. Census. The census report is published annually, but is staggered back a year – thus information for 2007 was made available in 2008, 2008 data in 2009, etc. The 2008 census report was just released in September so for the majority of the health care debate President Obama and other Congressional leaders have been citing 2007 data and various estimates from NGO think tanks.

So what data can we concretely draw from the latest census report?

• 46.3 million Americans are uninsured
• 15.4% of all Americans lack any health coverage
• 9.9% of all American children are uninsured
• Approximately 21%-25% of Americans at or beneath the national median income are uninsured
• For those Americans making $75,000 or more annually the uninsured rate drops to 8.2%

As I mentioned before, this data only reflects 2008. So where are we now? How has the most significant economic recession since the Great Depression impacted the number of uninsured? Well, to be honest, no one really knows. One of the issues is that a lot of the most reliable predictive modeling actually extends out until 2010. The predictive statistics below are drawn from the work of Professors Todd P. Gilmer and Richard G. Kronick.

According to this predictive model by 2010 (not taking into account the growth of the uninsured due to recession-related job loss):

• the rate of uninsured Americans under 65 years old has historically mirrored the declining affordability of health insurance;
• CMS estimates that per capita health spending will continue to grow at a steady 6.3% annually;
• by 2010 at least (not counting the impact of the recession) 52 million Americans under 65 will lack health insurance coverage;
• that is 19.2% of Americans under 65; and
• 26.4% of all working Americans will be uninsured.

However, there are a few models that tie together the growing rates of unemployment and the growth of the uninsured. In their Kaiser Family Fund publication from earlier this year John Holahan and Bowen Garrett posit that every time the rate of unemployment raises by 1% the number of the non-elderly adults who lose health insurance goes up by 0.59%.

• If this model holds true then nearly 6 million Americans have lost their health insurance over the past years as the unemployment rate hit 9.2% as of October 2009.
• This would jump the total number of uninsured in 2010 (assuming that we continue to hover around 10% unemployment) to approximately 58 million Americans.